Ciphers
by That-Hoopy-Frood
Summary: There has been a murder in East City, and Roy Mustang has been named the next victim. Desperate to catch the killer before he strikes, Ed, Al, and Lieutenant Hawkeye go on the offensive. But the Fullmetal Alchemist soon finds that there is more at stake than the Colonel's life. Who is after the secret of flame alchemy, and why does Hawkeye fear a man named Frank Archer? (FMA:B)


In the heart of Central City, in a world where the sun didn't shine and the rats outnumbered the people, where the condemned went to forget, and to be forgotten, an alchemist smiled. The shadows clung to him, veiling in him darkness, and in the murk, his pearlescent teeth gleamed like a crescent moon. His eyes were the color of storm clouds, bright with malice and insanity. His hands hung in pillories, keeping the two transmutation circles on his palms separated. He traced patterns on the floor with his foot, his toenails cracked and bloody. Sloppy alchemical arrays stained the stone crimson.

He hummed contently in his throat. "It's usually considered polite to knock."

A second figure stirred in the shadows. He stood silhouetted against the door, blocking the light from the corridor.

"This isn't really the place for formalities, Kimblee."

"Manners maketh man, you know." Solf J. Kimblee, the Crimson Alchemist, smiled even wider. His chapped lips split and blood ran down his teeth. "Not that I would expect you to appreciate such things. You're such a philistine. "

"And you're insane."

"Hmm, probably. How did you get in, if I may ask?"

"You may ask."

"But I take it an answer is less than forthcoming?"

"Correct."

"Shame. I was curious."

"I need some information, Master."

Kimblee's conversational tone froze like a cold snap; frost curled along his words, choking and killing them. "I am not your master. I never was. Make that mistake again and I will rive your eyeballs with my teeth."

"I don't think so, Crimson Alchemist." The man looked around Kimblee's dilapidated, dark prison cell. "It doesn't look as though you'll be doing anything for quite some time."

Kimblee seemed hardly bothered by the fact. "No, perhaps not. But a man can dream. And the image of your lifeblood pooling in your empty eye sockets will lull me into a deep, soothing sleep indeed."

"Do you hate me so much, Kimblee?"

"I don't _hate_ anyone. Hatred is so exhausting."

The man's voice hardened. "Then why can't you look me in the eye when you're talking to me?" He snapped his fingers in front of Kimblee's manic, vacant stare, trying to summon it back into focus.

Kimblee slowly turned to face him. Acid dripped from his words: "Because I can't _see_ you in here. You're blocking my light."

The figure shifted, stepping to the side of the door. The barred window illuminated a man's ashen face, his high cheekbones and ice blue eyes, so pale they were almost white. He was immaculately groomed, dressed smartly in a long, charcoal grey topcoat and red scarf. He would have been handsome, if it weren't for the lean, hungry look in his gaze.

Kimblee grinned. With his bloody lips and pillbox teeth, it was a gruesome sight. "Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Archer."

The figure stiffened. "That rank belongs to a man who no longer exists. It's just Archer, now."

"Shouldn't you be dead?"

"Yes."

"I've never spoken to a dead man before."

Archer deftly changed the subject. "You look thin, Kimblee. They feeding you enough?"

"You're not exactly a glowing vision of health and vitality yourself. But as you've no doubt already surmised, my stay here is rather more protracted than yours. What's your excuse?"

"I've been busy. I'm searching for something, and you are going to help me find it."

A sigh. "Why are the people who visit me in my prison cell always so frightfully dull?"

Archer ignored him. "You know why I'm here."

"Oh yes, I know. I know all about your tiresome quest for alchemical power. But I wouldn't teach you alchemy ten years ago, and I'm certainly not going to teach you now."

Archer crossed his arms. He showed his teeth when he spoke; they were the same color gray as his skin. "I couldn't care less about _your_ craft, Kimblee. Whatever high opinions I had of you died along with my rank. You forfeited your right to my respect when you tossed me out on the street."

"That's a rather interesting way of putting it. If I remember correctly, which I invariably do, a skinny little nobody arrived uninvited on my doorstep, inquiring after an apprenticeship. It took all of three minutes for me to turn him away. He was a pathetic excuse for an alchemist, no natural-born ability or inherent talent to speak of. That was three minutes of my precious time I can never get back. You were an embarrassment, Archer."

"I'm not here to ruminate," he snapped. "You're old news, Kimblee. I don't want your alchemy. I want information. You're going to tell me what I want to know."

"Oh? And why would I do that?"

"Because you can either walk or crawl away from this conversation. It makes very little difference to me, but I imagine it'll matter a great deal to you and your amaranthine sense of self-preservation."

"Fair enough." Kimblee rested his head against the wall. His long, lank hair fell over his shoulders. "Ask away."

"Roy Mustang."

Kimblee barked a laugh. "That's not a question, that's a name. Do keep up."

"Where does he keep his notes on flame alchemy?"

" _That_ _'_ _s_ what you're after? Forget what I said earlier, this is delightful! Really, I'm very much enjoying this, Frank. You fail to extract what you want from _me_ so you turn your attentions to a cut-rate philanderer like Mustang––"

"Where does the Flame Alchemist keep his research, Kimblee?"

"––and you continue to labor under this misconception that swiping a few scribbles on transmutation circles will somehow make you less of an inconsequential speck than you currently are. I find this quite refreshing. The guards are morons, but it's been a long time since someone's idiocy was quite so stimulating!"

Archer punched Kimblee, hard, in the mouth. The Crimson Alchemist's head smacked against the wall, leaving an impression of red on the stone. Blood clotted in his hair. Kimblee's steely eyes glazed over, refocused, tried to concentrate on Archer's outline in the darkness.

"Quite stimulating," he muttered. He spat out a tooth.

"Where does Colonel Mustang keep his notes, Kimblee?" Archer's poise hadn't cracked. "He's the only flame alchemist in existence; he must have made an archive of his research."

"How should I know?"

"Because you know _people_ , Kimblee. It gives you a lot of pleasure to break people apart, dissect them, until they're in pieces and unable to be put back together again. Your understanding comes at the price of their destruction."

"Do I detect a note of bitterness there, Frank?"

Archer pressed on, refusing to be deterred. "You served with Roy Mustang in Ishval. You saw his flame alchemy at work, studied his techniques. Moreover, combustion and ignition share many alchemical similarities. You two are far more alike than you would like to think."

"Oh, I have no qualms about admitting that. It's Mustang whose lunch might go down sideways. He's temperamental about those precious morals of his, you see. My particular brand of sadism is not in accordance with his ideals." Kimblee shrugged. "Pontificating morality is just another facet of narcissism. Besides, he's a soldier. Why he frets over the reasons for killing people is beyond me. They end up dead in the end, anyway, irrespective of justification."

Archer tried to reign in Kimblee's perambulating train of thought. He asked stonily, "So, you do know something about his alchemy?"

"I know it made my uniform smell like a barbecue for weeks."

"His master is dead," Archer insisted, his deep, steady voice growing a little more strained, "and being as there are no more flame alchemists, Mustang must be gagging the dissemination of the research. Regardless of my involvement, it's a gross censorship of knowledge. He's hiding it from the world, keeping it about his person."

"Wrong."

"Pardon?"

"Wrrrrrrrrrrrong," the word dripped from Kimblee's tongue like molasses, "incorrect, mistaken, in error, misinformed, completely and utterly deceived…"

Archer put his hand on the back of Kimblee's head and smashed it against the wooden pillories. There was an audible _crack_ and blood exploded from Kimblee's nose. Archer looked at the gory mess on his hands, frowning. He wiped them on the Crimson Alchemist's prison smock.

"Care to elaborate?" he asked.

Kimblee's voice sounded slightly stuffy. "Roy Mustang is no more in possession of the secrets of flame alchemy than I am."

"Then who is? There must be someone… he can't have memorized that much information on his own."

"Oh, not on his own, no. But there are still traces of the original notes."

"Where?"

Kimblee took his time, mulling the question over like a fine wine. Seconds turned into minutes; the _drip-drip_ of mildew in the corner marked the time like a metronome. Archer knew he was being played for a fool, but he was so desperate for an answer that he was willing to indulge the Mad Bomber.

Frank Archer was patient. He would wait as long as he had to. Equivalent exchange; the reward would be well worth the effort.

"Tell me," Kimblee finally asked, "what do you know about Roy Mustang's team? Every now and again news of the outside world will diffuse through these walls, but the information is patchy at best. What company does the Flame Alchemist keep these days?"

Archer frowned. He flexed his hand, preparing to punch Kimblee's thoughts back to the topic at hand if the need arose. "There are five of them. Jean Havoc's a chain-smoking womanizer, Heymans Breda's a layabout, Kain Fuery's still pink behind the ears, and Vato Falman wouldn't know a revolver from a radio if I shot him in the foot. They're a disgrace." Archer paused. After what seemed like a very long while, he admitted laboriously, "However, his adjutant is a decent soldier."

"Name?"

"Hawkeye."

Kimblee hummed deep in his throat. The sound was almost a purr. "Ah, good. I thought as much."

"You know her?"

"Intimately."

Archer crunched his knuckles, but decided not to inquire any further. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. "I remember her from the academy: good strategist, frightening sniper. But I suspect I know the real reason Mustang keeps her around… the Colonel probably gets a touch chilly at night."

To Archer's surprise, Kimblee's lip curled, as though he found that particular detail distinctly distasteful.

"Don't waste my time with gossip. If you were an alchemist, Archer, you'd know that there is no room for speculation in science."

Archer's patience was versatile, but his temper was not. "What does any of this have to do with flame alchemy?"

"Mustang values his craft. He values his subordinates more. They watch his back, but he watches hers."

"You're speaking in riddles."

"No, I'm speaking as an alchemist. If you cannot unravel the ball of string yourself, Frank, then perhaps you ought to go crawling back home like you did ten years ago. And that is all I have to say on the matter." Kimblee paused. He clicked his tongue against his teeth. "That was… eight minutes of my time I cannot get back."

Archer sighed. He took off his cashmere coat and rolled up his shirtsleeves. "Walking or crawling, Kimblee." He looked down at his shoes, then up at the Crimson Alchemist's shins. "I suppose I can buy a replacement pair tomorrow…"

When the blows came, breaking skin and cracking bone, Kimblee didn't scream.

He howled with laughter. The sound echoed around the prison like a bell chime, demarcating the dying hours…

* * *

In the end, it fell to Second-Lieutenant Heymans Breda to break the bad news to his boss.

The call had come through early that morning, something about a domestic disturbance near Eastern Headquarters. Neighbors had reported shouting and screams to the military police. As terrible as they were, such felonies didn't typically fall within Colonel Roy Mustang's jurisdiction. But because of the close proximity to the hub of military power in the East, and because the MPs had requested the Colonel by name, and because Breda had nothing better to do in the meantime, he decided to hit the bricks.

The address was one in a block of narrow rent houses, about half a mile from Eastern Headquarters, in a fairly well-to-do section of the city. The morning was raw and cold. Gray clouds on the northern horizon threatened snowfall. The small, white sun offered little warmth; Breda had to suck in his gut to button his uniform front, insulating himself against the icy wind. When he arrived at the house in question, his broad shoulders were dusted in snowflakes, and his ears had turned pink from the cold. He was glad he hadn't brought Jean Havoc along with him –– he probably would have offered Breda a cigarette to warm his bones. Breda couldn't stand the things. The smoke made him feel thin and papery, like something burning.

The MPs were waiting for him outside the house, behind a barricade of yellow tape and curious bystanders. The officers didn't look pleased to see him. That would have irritated anyone other than Breda. As it was, he took the reaction in his stride. He may have looked like an overweight idler, playing slow and dumb, but he was a few IQ points generous of genius and his field experience rivaled even the Colonel's. Breda was an excellent soldier, a keen strategist, a marksman of Riza Hawkeye's caliber, and one of Roy Mustang's most trusted confidants. His command of cleanup operations and damage control made him invaluable in maintaining face for the general populace. He could ease panic like a compress drawing poison from a wound.

But like the rest of Mustang's team, including Roy Mustang himself, Breda had his fronts, his masks. If the military police wanted to think of him as some slob who couldn't see past his next plate of food, then Breda wouldn't waste his energy trying to convince them otherwise. It was all part of the act. Meanwhile, he'd do his job, quietly and unobtrusively, and do it damn well, and leave everyone else to think what they liked.

"We specifically requested Colonel Mustang," said one of the officers, a scrawny, peach-fuzzed boy Breda neither recognized nor cared to recognize.

"Mustang's busy," said Breda brusquely. He didn't make a habit of mincing words. "You got me instead. What's the situation?"

The MPs glanced at each other. Breda stuck his hands under his armpits and waited for them to figure themselves out.

After a moment, Breda grunted, "I don't got all morning, guys. It's getting cold out here."

The peach-fuzzed officer peered at Breda's shoulders, counting the pips on his brocade. "Well, second-lieutenant…?"

"Breda. Heymans."

"If you'll follow me, 2nd Lt. Breda, Dr. Parcy is finishing up upstairs. She can explain everything to you."

Breda nodded, allowing himself to be escorted inside. The home was nice –– hilariously nicer than Breda's bunk in the dormitories near headquarters, at any rate. The oakwood floors gleamed under a fresh sheen of varnish. Ornate tapestries hung from the walls. The furniture looked hand-carved and outrageously valuable. A cabinet in the parlor boasted an impressive collection of Xingese artifacts: idols and masks and silk robes.

"Robbery?" asked Breda.

The young soldier shook his head. "No, sir. Nothing's missing, and there's no sign of anyone moving around in a hurry… you know, forced doors and muddy footprints and the like."

"Hmph."

As they ascended the stairs, Breda glanced at the framed family portraits above the banister. He tried not to feel as though the eyes trapped behind the glass were following him. House calls always made him a little uncomfortable; he was a soldier, and he believed the uniform belonged on the battlefield or at the bureau, not plodding through people's homes. He was an invader, and outsider. Breda didn't belong there.

Once they ascended to the second story landing, it didn't take Breda long to spot the body. It had been crucified above the bed in the master bedroom. Iron nails secured the hands to the four-poster crossbeams, wrists swaddled in the canopy, feet hanging suspended several inches above the sheets. There was no blood clotting around the puncture wounds in the hands, but the man's eyes bulged from their sockets. His face was purple and bloated. His black tongue lolled out of his mouth.

Dr. Parcy –– a pinched, myopic woman with a tight bun of gray hair –– turned when Breda entered the room. If she was surprised to see him instead of Colonel Mustang, she gave no indication of the fact.

She launched into her report: "His name was Robert Crane. Estranged wife, no kids. He was a candlemaker, quite a reputable tradesman, if his certificates of authenticity are to be believed. The perforations and all external scarring were done post-mortem. The bruising around the windpipe and the discoloration of the skin lead me to believe he died by strangulation."

Breda just nodded. He was only half-listening to Parcy, conducting his own examination of Crane's corpse.

He imagined the sight would have made a lot of people quite ill. And though Breda hadn't served in Ishval like the Colonel or Lieutenant Hawkeye, his position under the Flame Alchemist forced a desultory acquaintance with death. But it didn't bother Heymans Breda. It never had; death was part of the natural order of things, as much as dreaming and falling in love and getting homesick.

Even so, even Breda had to admit that Robert Crane's death was particularly brutal.

The most marked feature on the dead body wasn't its gruesome expression or its crucified limbs. Crane's nightshirt had been sliced open, revealing a message scrawled across his chest, the letters branded from the lit tip of a cigarette.

 _You_ _'_ _re next, Flame Alchemist_

Parcy cracked a small, sympathetic smile. "We weren't just being difficult when we requested Roy Mustang in person, 2nd Lt. Breda."

Breda sighed. It was going to be a very long day.

* * *

A certain diminutive, poorly dressed state alchemist with a hair-trigger temper had been summoned to the office of his commanding officer, and he was pissed as hell about it.

His younger brother, clanking up the stairs of Eastern Headquarters, had explained patiently that yes, Colonel Mustang had the authority to issue a summons, and yes, it was probably something extremely important, and no, Mustang was not an egocentric bastard with a grossly overinflated sense of his own importance.

Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, brushed the fresh snow from his shoulders. His boots left puddles on the floor of headquarters. "He has a phone, doesn't he?" he said irritably. "Why doesn't he just pick it up and call us? Or does he enjoy making us trudge all the way here through a blizzard…"

Alphonse's sigh of resignation sounded tinny inside the hollow suit of armor. "It's hardly a blizzard, brother. Besides, it could be delicate information. The Colonel might not be able to talk about it over the phone."

"He's probably going to ask us to do something damn near impossible, like stop this weather for him. Bastard's useless when he's wet."

Alphonse's head creaked on his shoulders. "It's not raining."

"So what, it's snowing. Same difference."

"It sounds different," said Al quietly. "The rain makes a lot of noise when it hits my armor, like nails bouncing on the sidewalk. The snow is silent. I can't hear anything."

Ed glanced up –– quite far up –– at his younger brother, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Yeah." Ed passed a line of windows; he watched the falling snow, the clean whiteness muffling the sounds of East City. "I guess you're right."

The two walked the rest of the way to Mustang's office in silence.

A council of war had been assembled by the time Ed and Al arrived. Four officers stood to attention in front of Mustang's desk, arranged by height in perfect parade posture. The only exception was Sergeant-Major Kain Fuery, who was bent over his workstation, fiddling with an assemblage of wires and radio equipment that made complex alchemical formulae look downright elementary. Ed wondered off-handedly what the small, bookish communications officer was up to, but Fuery didn't hold his attention for long.

"Fullmetal! Took you long enough."

Edward Elric's expression soured. Al's massive hand on his shoulder held back a tide of colorfully worded insults.

Roy Mustang's smile was irritatingly smug. Ed wanted to punch it off his face.

Second-Lieutenant Jean Havoc glanced over his shoulder. "Hey kid. You're just in time for the fireworks."

Mustang's smile evaporated. "That's not funny, Havoc."

"Come on, boss, it was a little bit funny."

"Any quips disparaging a viable threat on the Colonel's life are in extremely poor taste, Havoc."

Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye's tone was as sharp as broken glass. Havoc's smile disappeared even faster than Mustang's.

"Someone has threatened your life, Colonel?" asked Al, concern creasing his words.

Ed made a small noise in the back of his throat. Al looked down at his brother. It shouldn't have been possible for a suit of armor to glare, but Alphonse managed it rather well.

Ed crossed his arms. "Hey, don't look at me! I don't go sneaking around threatening people. That's the Colonel's job."

"It couldn't have been you, Fullmetal," said Mustang. "The message for me was hung from a four-poster bed; you wouldn't have been able to reach up that high."

The Fullmetal Alchemist fumed. "WHO'RE YOU CALLING––"

Al's hand on his brother's shoulder got a little tighter. Ed yelped.

"WHAT THE HELL, AL, ARE YOU TRYING TO BREAK MY COLLARBONE?"

"Stop shouting, brother! And be nice to the Colonel."

"BUT HE CALLED ME––"

"Edward, if Alphonse doesn't break your collarbone, I will," snapped Lieutenant Hawkeye. "Please be quiet."

Ed simmered. He imagined bringing his hands together and catapulting the Colonel through the window. Much to his chagrin, the other officers looked highly amused by the whole exchange, but a pointed glare by Lieutenant Hawkeye kept any laughter trapped in their throats. 2nd Lt. Havoc chewed on the butt of his cigarette in an effort to reign in a smile. He gave the tiny alchemist a knowing wink.

"To answer your earlier question, Alphonse," Lieutenant Hawkeye continued smoothly, "there _has_ been a threat made against the Colonel's life. Falman can give you the details."

Warrant Officer Falman snapped to attention. If anything, he was even stiffer than Hawkeye. Ed thought his spine would snap if he stood up any straighter, and Falman was already tall enough as it was.

"At 0707 hours this morning, on the 2300 block of Eastern Avenue," Falman didn't talk much, but when he did, rattled off information like an encyclopedia, "the body of one Robert Crane was found by military police after receiving a call about a possible domestic disturbance. The coroner, Dr. Emily Parcy, determined the cause of death to be strangulation."

Alphonse let out a small, "Oh." Ed didn't say anything.

Breda picked up from where his subordinate had left off: "It gets worse. Guy'd been branded by his killer, lotta cigarette burns on his chest to spell out a message to the Colonel."

" _'You_ _'_ _re next, Flame Alchemist._ _'_ " Hawkeye's voice was strangely reverberant as she said the words.

The adjacent silence grew oppressive and uncomfortable quickly. The only sound was the tap of copper wire on bakelite plastic as Fuery continued to fiddle with his equipment. Havoc dug in his pocket for his lighter.

Ed broke the silence first: "So… who was this Crane guy?"

Breda shrugged. "No clue."

"Candlemaker," said Falman. "Artisan. No affiliation with the military or Colonel Mustang… so far as I'm aware."

"You're aware of quite a lot," noted Havoc wryly, his now-lit cigarette hanging from his lips. Hawkeye waved the smoke out of her face.

"So why use him to threaten the Colonel?" asked Alphonse hesitantly.

Ed was thinking along the same vein; the brothers so often did. "Why not use someone he actually cares about?"

It was Hawkeye who answered: "Because it is far easier to murder an unarmed Amestrian citizen than any soldier or state alchemist."

"And because the man was a candlemaker."

They all looked up at Colonel Mustang, who had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the entire exchange. His dark eyes had clouded over. He rested his head on his hands, staring vacantly at the piles of –– unfinished –– paperwork on his desk. The dappled light from the falling snow accented the sharp lines of his face, the rings under his eyes, the creases tugging at the corners of his mouth. Sometimes, Ed thought the Colonel looked very tired, and very sad. There were times when he doubted even Hawkeye knew what he was thinking.

"He was a candlemaker," Mustang said again. "He dealt in heat and fire. Furthermore, the message to me was burned onto his skin."

Suddenly, Havoc didn't look so keen on chewing on his cigarette. Hawkeye handed him an ashtray.

Mustang looked up through his disheveled bangs. "I'd say it's a pretty clear pattern, wouldn't you, Lieutenant?"

Everyone's attention turned to the Lieutenant. Her face remained impassive, but amber met onyx, and an understanding seemed to pass between officer and subordinate, an entire conversation diffused through a single glance.

Ed felt something cold sink into the pit of his stomach; he had once been able to do that with Alphonse, back when his brother had his eyes, along with everything else.

The Lieutenant took a deep breath. Ed thought he heard it catch.

"He's after your flame alchemy, sir."

Now everyone was staring at Mustang. "So it would seem."

" _He_ _'_ _s_?" Edward's golden eyes narrowed shrewdly on his superior officer. "You mean you know this guy?"

"Dr. Parcy was able to find fingerprints on the victim's windpipe," explained Falman. "Fortunately for Dr. Knox back at the coroner's office in Cental General, the Amestrian military keeps a thorough record of all personnel data, including fingerprints. It didn't take Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes long to find a match."

"He's _military?!_ Geez, you're making some enemies, Colonel."

" _Former_ military. His name was –– is –– Frank Archer," said Hawkeye. "We were all surprised by this new information."

Ed was sure of it a second time: her voice sounded slightly shaky. Any other person would have missed it; certainly, none of the other soldiers seemed to notice. But Ed valued the small details, the seemingly unimportant minutia of the world. Constituent parts were the bread and butter of alchemy, and Fullmetal didn't think it was any coincidence that the only ones who noted Hawkeye's rare lapse in composure were himself, Al… and the Colonel.

But the Colonel always noticed when it came to Hawkeye.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Archer was an instructor at the military academy during the final years of the Ishvalan War," continued Hawkeye. "His specialty was sharpshooting, which is how I came to make his acquaintance, but his private research involved combat-based alchemy."

Ed frowned. "I don't remember reading about any state alchemists named Archer."

"You wouldn't have, Fullmetal," said Mustang, "because Frank Archer wasn't a state alchemist."

"Huh?"

Breda grunted. "Rumor was he was passed up for several alchemy apprenticeships: Grand, McDougall, even Kimblee… all no's.

"Man was a few bullets short of a full round, if you catch my drift, kid," said Havoc. He took a drag of his cigarette. "He just couldn't handle the continual rejection. Cracked a little. Never met the guy myself, but I reckon ya have to be a little crazy to teach sharpshooting; looking at the world through a crosshair tends to get to you after a while… no offense, Lieutenant."

"Some taken, Second-Lieutenant."

"Oh. Sorry."

Mustang glared daggers at Havoc before continuing, "Archer seemed a good soldier and a good teacher. He never showed any signs of… well… let's just say we were all well and truly fooled… we didn't think he was capable of…" He trailed off into silence. The words slipped through the cracks like sand between his fingertips.

It wasn't like the Colonel to run out of things to say. He usually reveled in the sound of his own voice. Everyone was acting strangely, and it was beginning to grate on Ed's already tapering nerves. They were skating around a singular, critical detail, a variable that would have completed the equation. Ed hated not knowing the full picture. Knowledge was power, and being deprived of it was like losing another one of his limbs.

"You mean, you didn't think Archer was capable of killing anyone?" asked Al. For such a big body, his voice sounded very small, echoing in the hollow cavern of his chest.

"You said he was all into combat alchemy." Ed's blond brows knitted together. "Explains why he might wanna go after the Colonel's flame. Maybe he'd even kill for it."

Mustang and Hawkeye exchanged another glance. This time, the Colonel's black eyes lingered on hers.

"No, Edward," said the Lieutenant softly, turning towards the Fullmetal Alchemist. "We didn't think Archer was capable of what he did on the night before I was shipped out to Ishval, long before the murder of Robert Crane."

Ed could cut the silence that followed with a butter knife. Breda and Falman seemed to have taken a profound interest in their shoes. Havoc flipped his lighter between his fingers, avoiding everyone's eye. Even Fuery had grown still, placing his radio parts on the table with hardly a sound.

But it wasn't embarrassment or shame that turned their gazes away. Ed felt a low, dangerous energy in the air, a charged stillness like the air around a Van de Graaff generator.

He felt their anger. Rage curled from each member of Team Mustang like a bad smell. They went silent as they remembered something they would much rather leave in the shadows of the past, something that made their heartbeats pulse in their ears and their blood boil. Something, Ed realized, that had to do with Frank Archer.

"You said you were surprised when the fingerprints came back," ventured Ed, acutely aware of just how thin the ice was under his boots. "Why?"

Mustang looked about to interject, but Hawkeye silenced him with a glance. That alone said enough about the gravity of the situation.

"Frank Archer died four years ago," she said, in a tone that made Ed shiver. "I was surprised when the fingerprints came back because I'm the one who killed him."

* * *

"It's just so _boring_ , Roy. Couldn't you come visit me?"

 _"Elizabeth, you know I have work to do."_

"Mmm, maybe you can keep me company in other ways…"

 _"Naughty, naughty… you know I_ _'_ _m not supposed to use an official line for more…_ intimate _personal calls."_

"You're not supposed to use the official line for personal calls at all, asshole!"

Nothing brought the ruse screeching to a halt quite like a pissed-off Edward Elric.

Lieutenant Hawkeye pulled her headset aside. "Edward, please stay focused and speak using the cipher."

The Colonel couldn't help himself. _"Yes, Barbara, I hope you_ _'_ _re not giving Elizabeth too much trouble."_

"BARBARA?!"

Ed trembled with anger. He heard clanking footfalls over the radio. _"I_ _'_ _m sorry about brother, Colonel."_

 _"No worries, Alphonse._ _Besides, I_ _'_ _m rather enjoying this."_

"I would ask you not to tease my girlfriends, Roy." Hawkeye's icy veneer melted in an instant. She was a damn good actress, Ed admitted grudgingly. "That's not a way to land a date, now is it?"

Mustang's voice was disgustingly sweet. His words dripped like honey: _"Oh, Elizabeth, you know my heart belongs to you."_

"You're gonna make me barf."

 _"Hush, Barbara."_

Lieutenant Hawkeye sighed. Ed knew the subterfuge was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain with him steaming like an automail kettle beside her, but he didn't care.

"Edward, if you're going to run recon with me, you must take this seriously."

"Tell that to the Colonel."

"I assure you, the Colonel is taking this very seriously."

"Only because it's his ass on the line," muttered Ed. "If it had been any other alchemist…"

"It isn't himself he's worried about, Edward."

He went quiet after that, not entirely sure what she meant.

As Hawkeye adjusted the radio switchboard, Ed watched her, studied her with an alchemist's eyes. There was a saying amongst transmuters: dust is the parent of a star. When Ed was a boy, he had sat with Alphonse on a beach in the middle of a lake, after a month sequestered from civilization. He had held up an ant to the starlight, and marveled at how the little things are infinitely the most important. Since then, he had never discounted the small details. Everything had once started small. Everything had the potential to be more than the sum of its parts. Even human beings were composites of compounds so mundane they could be picked up at the neighborhood apothecary, and yet they constituted something much greater than a mere construct of flesh and meat and organic chemicals. Riza Hawkeye's expressiveness was subtle and fleeting, but Edward was no ordinary alchemist, and to him, the inflections were as blatant as a transmutation circle inscribed in blood. He was finely attuned to the worry, the fear, the uncertainty in Hawkeye's movements, in her clipped, cool voice. She hid an entire universe of meaning in a few short phrases, like lenticular perspectives of a single spoken word.

The return of Frank Archer had really unnerved her. A ghost had stepped back into her life, one who was making threats against the man she was sworn to protect. It was enough to rattle even someone as strong as Lieutenant Hawkeye.

"If the Colonel's the one in danger, why is he on the manhunt?" asked Ed, his spiky temper growing smoother.

"Bait," Hawkeye said simply. "You may have noticed Sergeant-Major Fuery's work earlier?"

"Yeah… looked like his precious radios had suffered an alchemical rebound or something."

"He was constructing a resonator for our radio communication network. The resonator amplifies oscillations within a particular frequency band, while reducing oscillations at frequencies outside the band. Fuery has ensured that the bandwidth between the upper and lower cutoff frequencies of the channel is very narrow, isolating a very thin band of the frequency spectrum for our use."

Ed followed. "So our radio communication is distinct amongst other frequencies but hard to unscramble on our own channel, making it easy for Archer to pick up the chatter but difficult to isolate the calls."

"Our signal will alert him to our locations: Eastern Headquarters, the wharf district, the market district, and your hotel, Edward. However, Archer will not know which location houses the Colonel. The sound of the Colonel's voice over the radio will draw Archer into the labyrinth, and once there, we will be ready for him."

"That's genius."

"Fuery is very good at what he does. As are we all."

Ed crossed his arms. The joint echoed like hollow tin. "You said something about bait." He paused, then asked wryly, "Your idea, Lieutenant?"

"It was."

He couldn't suppress a smile, and reminded himself to avoid irritating Riza Hawkeye in the future.

"What'd the Colonel do to piss you off?"

"Absolutely nothing. It was simply the most watertight plan proposed. The Colonel agreed to it of his own volition."

"Oh." Ed sounded slightly disappointed.

After a moment, Hawkeye added, completely straight-faced, "I certainly wouldn't be petty enough to punish him for continually slacking off on his paperwork, missing meetings, and failing to file so much as a single incident report in the past week. That would be completely unbecoming of a subordinate officer."

Ed grinned. "You know, Lieutenant, sometimes I think you're not as stoic as everyone makes you out to be."

"People are free to think what they like, Edward." Hawkeye redonned her headphones. "I'm just a soldier following orders."

 _"And looking drop-dead gorgeous while doing it, Elizabeth."_

A blush crept up from under Ed's collar. Hawkeye, however, looked unimpressed. "You could have better chances, Roy dear."

The line was very quiet very quickly.

"Looks like the Flame Alchemist can get burned after all," Ed said into the headphones before Hawkeye could stop him.

 _"No one asked for your opinion! Now would you kindly put Elizabeth back on the line?"_

"Maybe Elizabeth doesn't want to talk to you anymore, Colonel Candyass!"

 _"Maybe she_ _'_ _s just sick and tired of being stuck with a temperamental brat like you, Barbara!"_

"Don't call me Barbara when you're insulting me!"

Hawkeye turned the volume down, silencing the Colonel's caustic response. Ed continued to shout until he realized Hawkeye had muted the radio, and that he was speaking to himself. He dropped the headset into the Lieutenant's outstretched hand, looking a little sheepish.

"How do you put up with it?" he asked glumly.

"To what are you referring?"

" _Him_." Ed gestured vaguely to the radio. "Colonel Bastard, making eyes at every girl on the street and using military lines to pick up dates. It must get pretty annoying."

"Why would I be annoyed?"

"Well, I mean," Ed shifted uncomfortably; being the sole focus of her amber eyes was unsettling, "it's pretty unprofessional."

She arched an eyebrow; it disappeared under her winged bangs. "In that case, wouldn't Havoc, Falman, Breda, and Fuery have amble reason to be annoyed as well?"

Ed struggled to think of the right thing to say. "Because you're his… because you and him…" The hole was getting deeper and deeper. "Because you're his adjutant," he finished lamely. Dammit.

Ed imagined Al's face, that hulking suit of armor that would somehow manage to look absolutely mortified. Worse, he imagined the Colonel's face, that smug, self-satisfied smirk that set Ed's teeth on edge. 'Is this how you charm all the girls, Fullmetal?' he'd joke. God, Ed hated him sometimes. How the Lieutenant didn't snap and wring his neck was beyond him.

As though she knew what he was thinking, Hawkeye said, "The reason I don't get annoyed, Edward, is because I am simply as you say: his adjutant. How and with whom the Colonel chooses to spend his free time is neither of our concerns. As his subordinate, I would caution you to remember that."

Ed grew silent, well and truly cowed. If anyone else had said that to him, Ed would have clapped his hands and sent them sprawling into the snow. But when Lieutenant Hawkeye gave an order, people tended to listen, even alchemist prodigies with hair-trigger tempers.

It wasn't that Ed was afraid of her. Technically, he outranked her, although unlike a certain Flame Alchemist, he didn't make a habit of pulling rank to get his way. Even though Hawkeye came across as a complete and utter hardass, Ed liked to think he knew her better. Under the layers of strict military professionalism, Riza Hawkeye was a very kind person. Ed remembered the Lieutenant sitting with Winry Rockbell on the day Mustang came to recruit him for the state alchemy program, on the worst day of Edward's life. Not many things had been certain during that time; Ed and Al had been scarred in both their bodies and their souls, but in their misery, they had dredged up a new purpose for themselves in their seemingly unending quest to get their original bodies back. It was a paradox of deriving hope from the greatest despair. Even the then Lieutenant-Colonel Mustang had seemed an unstable mess of contradictions, unwieldy and uncertain, barging into Pinako's parlor, simmering with indignant fury over Ed and Al's botched attempt at human transmutation.

But not Riza Hawkeye. She had been calm, collected, something strong and sturdy when the rest of the world seemed to be falling apart, telling Winry that everything was going to be okay. Ed had never forgotten that. He showed his gratitude in his deference, which for him was a rare thing indeed.

It was one of the many reasons why the Colonel pissed him off. He flirted and philandered and acted like an arrogant bastard, treating the best thing that had ever happened to him like garbage. As Ed and Hawkeye crouched near Fuery's lash-up, Ed fought the urge to tear the headphones away from the Lieutenant and give the Colonel an unstinting piece of his mind.

"Edward, if you touch that headset, I'll pistol-whip you."

So perhaps Hawkeye did frighten him… but only a little bit.

Ed muttered an apology, then amused himself by staring out the window, trying to ignore the fact that he had to stretch to see over the sill. He wasn't short. The window was just unusually high.

* * *

Ed lost track of time. For every falling snowflake, he recited an element. _Hydrogen… helium… lithium…_ By the time he reached gold –– _symbol Au, from Latin aurum, atomic number 79, a bright, slightly reddish yellow, dense, soft, ductile metal_ –– he was bored out of his mind.

He shifted back to reality when Hawkeye adjusted the radio to get a status report. "Felicia, do you have my order ready?"

 _"Who's Felicia—ow."_ There was the sound of a hard smack, what sounded like _'Falman, you moron, we literally went over this five minutes ago,'_ before the radio crackled back to life. _"This is… Felicia. Um, no. We're still working on that order, but there's no sign of the customer. It's pretty quiet, all things considered. You?"_

Vato Falman had feigned a high-pitched, vaguely feminine voice that grated in Hawkeye's ears and had Ed in hysterics. He put a gloved hand over his mouth to keep his laughter from echoing on the shortwave.

"Barbara's a drag, but otherwise here's not much to report," said Hawkeye, in a tone that could cut ice. Ed's mouth snapped shut. Somewhere on another channel, Roy Mustang chortled.

The signal fluctuated as someone shoved Falman out of the way of the microphone. The chipper voice of Jean Havoc echoed through her headphones: _"This is Jacqueline. Don_ _'_ _t worry, Lizzie dear, we'll get this over with and get you over to that nice boy Roy in no time."_

"Nice?" asked Ed incredulously.

"Lizzie dear?" Hawkeye quirked her eyebrows.

 _"Ah, hello_ _… this is Kate."_

Hawkeye adjusted the switchboard. "Oh hello, dear, would you like to speak to Roy?"

Kain Fuery cleared his throat. _"Err, no… but I wanted to let you know things are running pretty smoothly on this end, as well."_

"Bess?"

Breda grunted. _"Nothing."_

Hawkeye pursed her lips into a thin line.

"I would've thought you'd be happy, Lieutenant," said Ed, "seeing as no one's tried to kill us yet. That's gotta be some kind of record."

Hawkeye had never much cared for flippancy in tense situations, and her stony expression told Ed this occasion was no exception. "The idea was to draw the bogie away from the Colonel, to one of our positions. Not knowing the location of our target equates to not knowing for certain whether or not the Colonel is in danger."

"What happened to no news is good news? Look, if something happened, Al would protect him."

The static buzzed over the radio like caesural breaks in her breathing.

"That's my job," she said softly.

Ed went quiet. He knew how she felt; being distanced from Al was a perceptible itch in the limbs he no longer had.

The radio buzzed with white noise, drawing their attention. Hawkeye frowned again and adjusted the channel, tapping her headphones. She had received a status report from the entire team, and protocol called for a period of radio silence. Voices came through indistinct and garbled, fading in and out of communication range. Ed suddenly felt ill at ease.

"There must be weather interference," murmured Hawkeye.

Ed peered out the window. If anything, the snowstorm had grown calmer. He spied something at street level and his hackles stood on end. Everyone was inside, barricading themselves against the blizzard, but the snowdrifts surrounding their hiding place were covered in fresh footprints. Judging by the pattern, someone had recently done a perimeter sweep of their location.

"Hey Lieutenant," said Ed, "I think we're gonna have company."

Hawkeye glanced out the window. She didn't betray any emotion, but she removed the bolt-action rifle from the holster on her back and loaded a round.

A whine sounded from the radio, piercing Ed's eardrums. He clapped his hands over his ears, wincing. Hawkeye grimaced, tearing the headphones off. Once the sound died, she went over to the microphone:

"Roy, can you hear me? Roy?"

The voice cut across the static: _"Since when are soldiers permitted to refer to their superior officers by their first name? Things seemed to have changed quite a lot since you killed me, Hawkeye."_

The Lieutenant went chalk white. Ed didn't know what freaked him out more: her sudden lack of composure, or the cool, unfriendly voice coming through over the radio.

 _"Hmm, I_ _'_ _m surprised that worked. Piggybacking your channel was rather more difficult than I originally anticipated. The snow didn_ _'_ _t help. Sorry to keep you all waiting."_ The voice became clearer as the static died down. _"Sergeant-Major Fuery knows what he_ _'s doing, Cadet_ _––_ _excuse me, Lieutenant_ _–– but so do I. Alphonse Elric is stationed with your Colonel in a hotel in the gaslamp district, Havoc and Falman are in the wharf district, Fuery and Breda are still at Eastern Headquarters, and yourself and the Fullmetal Alchemist are hiding in the building half a block away from my current location. Did I forget anyone?"_

Hawkeye didn't say a word. One pointed look at Ed kept him quiet, as well.

 _"I_ _'_ _m headed to you now. We can talk more once I_ _'_ _m not up to my knees in slush. I_ _'_ _m eager to see how you_ _'_ _ve been, Hawkeye. Perhaps you_ _'_ _ll be as familiar with me as you are with your commanding officer."_

The line went dead. Ed's golden eyes were as wide as saucers. He looked up at Hawkeye; she was already retuning the channel. Her hands were steady as she worked.

She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Roy. It seems I got my timetables mixed up." Hawkeye's voice didn't waver from its usual calm as she relayed the cipher into the radio: "The order is ready. The customer is here. I'll have to let you go."

 _"Elizabeth_ _… wait a moment––"_

"Goodbye, Roy. I'll talk to you again later, okay?"

 _"Elizabeth! Lieut_ _––"_

Hawkeye pulled the headset from its plug. Then she smashed the shortwave under the heel of her boot, startling Ed.

"What the hell did you do that for?!"

"So he can't trace the Colonel's location. We're expendable; he's not."

"Gee, thanks."

They heard a door being forced below them in the building. Ed's body was as taut as piano wire, ready for action at a moment's notice.

"Dammit," Hawkeye muttered, almost too quietly for Ed to hear her. "I've made a grave error of judgment."

"Seems we're doing okay to me." Ed had already transmuted his automail arm into a short, sharp blade, the razor edge glinting in the snowy light. "You wanted this Archer guy to ignore the Colonel, right?"

"Unless he's not after the Colonel," she said softly.

Ed frowned. "What do you mean––"

The door rattled, as though battered by a gust of wind. Ed thought he heard the sound of sparks, smelled the burning solder of an electrical fire. Hawkeye took aim.

"Edward," she barked, "transmute a barrier across the door. We have to keep him busy as long as possible."

Ed grinned. "You got it."

He brought his hands close together to perform the transmutation… and froze. The fingers of his automail hand curled, shielding his palm. Ed's grin faltered. He strained against his suddenly immobile arm.

"What the hell––?"

It wasn't a malfunction. The arm hadn't gone limp and fallen to his side. It was stuck in position, as though frozen.

"Bring your other hand to your automail!" ordered Hawkeye.

"My fingers are blocking my palm! I can't make the connection!" Ed tried to uncurl the digits.

"Can't you move them?"

"You try breaking your own fingers, Hawkeye!"

But Hawkeye wasn't listening. She stood transfixed, staring at the figure in the doorway.

"Your automail is a steel compound, a metal alloy made of iron ore and carbon. And iron, unfortunately for you, is highly magnetic."

A man stepped into the room. He was dressed in a black topcoat, his dark hair dusted with snow. His red scarf was a violent slash of color across his throat. He wore gauntlets on each hand, similar to Major Armstrong's. At first Ed thought he was another alchemist, but there were no transmutation circles on the gauntlets. Ed found himself drawn to them, curious despite himself. The metal plates were made of a ferromagnetic material –– iron like automail. The fingers were wrapped in solenoids of tightly coiled red wire. Near each wrist were two rudimentary batteries, sending an electrical current through the winding. The man's coat pockets bulged from what Ed assumed were spare batteries other iron composites.

"You like it?" The man flexed his fingers. "Electromagnetism. The iron core of the gauntlets concentrates and manipulates the magnetic field flux in the room. Not alchemy, but not bad for an amateur tinkerer like myself."

Pale, hungry eyes roamed over Ed and Hawkeye.

The Lieutenant leveled her rifle at the man's chest. "You're dead, Lieutenant-Colonel."

"No, but you certainly tried your hardest. Good to see you again, Hawkeye. You grew your hair out. It looks nice."

"So you're the punk we're after, huh?" growled Ed, still trying to shift his automail and turning beet red with the effort. He noted how the batteries on the man's gauntlets whirred with energy every time he tried to move…

"My name is Frank Archer," the man said smoothly. "I murdered Robert Crane early this morning."

The safety came off and Hawkeye took aim at Archer's heart. She would not miss. "You are under arrest, sir. Please get down on the ground and place your hands above your head."

"I always liked it when you called me sir."

She ignored him. "And please release my senior officer."

"Senior officer?" Archer peered at Ed, his lips twitching in what may have been a smile. "You must be Edward Elric, the infamous Fullmetal Alchemist. You're terribly small for a _senior officer._ "

"WHAT?!"

"Hmm, with a manic-aggressive temperament to boot. Indicative of any number of inferiority complexes."

"Let me go and I'll show you manic-aggressive, pal!"

"Enough!" snapped Hawkeye. She glowered at Archer. "Get down on the ground. Now."

"You're so cold, Riza."

"That's Lieutenant Hawkeye to you!" snapped Ed.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye," he amended, "do you remember our lesson on bolt-action rifles? No? Well, I can tell you that the muzzle velocity of your particular model is approximately 745 miles per second. Now, electromagnetic waves," he raised his gauntlets for emphasis, "travel at more than 186,411 miles per second. I can twist your gun –– and your steel automail, Fullmetal –– into pleated scrap before you have a chance to pull the trigger. You're fast, Hawkeye, but not quite that fast."

"Perhaps I'm not––"

Hawkeye took an unwieldy, ill-timed shot; Archer was forced to bring his gauntlets in front of his chest to deflect the bullet.

"But he is!"

With Archer distracted, Edward clapped his hands. The ground under his feet erupted into a towering pillar of stone and brick, catapulting him over Hawkeye's head. He brought his arm-blade to bear across his chest, the edge leveled at Archer's shoulders. Archer rolled away at the last minute, Ed's blade catching the tailing end of his scarf. Ed landed lightly on his feet and broke into a run.

As Archer tried to circle the room, the young alchemist clapped his hands again and an ascending set of stone platforms lifted him into the air, rising like a stairway until he was looking down at Archer's head. Archer brought his gauntlets up over his face, as though to shield himself. Ed's expression was grim; his automail blade would slice through the iron plates like a knife through wet paper. He leapt from the tallest pillar and dove towards Archer's head…

There was a sudden, rending pain in Ed's shoulder. His automail arm froze in midair, the rest of his body dropping like dead weight, until he was left dangling above the floor. He grit his teeth as gravity slowly pulled his nerve endings from the automail joint. Archer held him there, his gauntlets humming with electricity. Before Hawkeye could rush over to help him, Ed saw Archer's other hand motion towards the Lieutenant's rifle. He tried to wrench her gun away, his gauntlet catching the steel of the bolt and the trigger. Hawkeye held on, digging her boots into the stone floor.

"Did you kill any children in Ishval, Lieutenant?"

Hawkeye stiffened. "Archer…"

He forced the muzzle of her rifle up, shifting it to aim directly at Ed's head. The Fullmetal Alchemist tried to pull his automail into free-fall along with the rest of him, but it stayed trapped in the electromagnetic field. Hawkeye grunted, pulling at her gun, trying to wrest it from Archer's control.

"You have what I want, Riza."

"Yes," she agreed, desperate to buy Edward some time. "I have it."

Ed started. "Hawkeye, what the hell––"

"I'm so pleased to hear that." Something switched in Archer's tone. Ed noted his pupils dilating, the thin sheen of sweat on his lower lip, the way he showed his teeth too much when he spoke, the words now low and dangerous. "I need you, Hawkeye. I don't need the Fullmetal Alchemist, and I'm very particular about cleaning up my messes. Just like you were when you shot me."

Hawkeye's amber eyes widened, flashing in panic. Ed started to swing himself back and forth, trying to yank his arm socket from the automail grafts. The pain was unbelievable, like molten ore dripping from every nerve ending. His bones felt like they were being welded together with a blowtorch. But Winry Rockbell was the finest automail engineer in the business, and Ed couldn't pull himself free from his own stupid, synthetic limb.

And Hawkeye couldn't regain control of her rifle.

Archer curled his fingers, the solenoid coils on his joints tightening. The electromagnetic field grew stronger.

"You know, Lieutenant," Archer smiled like a corpse; his peroxide-white eyes were leering, hungry, "I remember you well from the academy. How you used to frequent the shooting range before the sun rose. How you kept yourself to yourself, avoiding small talk, always so private and diligent. You were so quiet, and I used to wonder what it would take to make you scream."

Ed's heart pounded against his ribcage. He swallowed, his throat suddenly bone dry. "Lieutenant…" He winced against a fresh wave of pain; blood was beginning to drip from his arm socket.

"I suppose I have to settle for begging."

Hawkeye's expression hardened dangerously, but she didn't hesitate when she said, "Don't kill him. Please. Any chance of my cooperation will die along with him."

"Beg me, Riza."

"Go to hell!" spat Ed.

Archer frowned. "That wasn't very nice, Fullmetal." A finger on his gauntlet curled…

Hawkeye pulled with every scrap of her strength as the gun went off.

Edward screamed. He hit the floor with a sickening _thud_ , his automail arm in pieces around him. He curled up, his hand flush against the pleated, bleeding scrap of his arm socket. He hadn't been in this much pain since _that_ day… behind the brume of pain and shock, he could see Hawkeye breathe a shaky sigh of relief. She had twisted the muzzle a fraction of a degree south, missing his head by inches. She always did have really good aim…

Archer released his hold on the rifle. It clattered to the floor. "Well," he said, somewhat dejectedly, "you have spirit, Lieutenant, I'll give you that. No matter."

Ed saw Archer's hand go to his pocket, heard the batteries whirring on his wrists. He tried to call out, but his voice came out as a feeble croak. He fought back the encroaching darkness, desperate to stay conscious.

The Lieutenant, distracted by Edward, moved too late. Archer tossed what Ed mistakenly thought was a pair of push blades. Then two magnetized manacles snapped onto Hawkeye's wrists, bolting them to the floor, trapping her arms between her stomach and the stone, her legs splayed out behind her, her back facing the ceiling.

Ed stirred, his face twisted in pain. "Lieutenant!" He barred his teeth and began to crawl across the floor towards her, using his good arm as leverage, pushing with his legs. "Leave her alone, you bastard!"

Archer tossed another electromagnet towards Ed. It attached itself to his leg and locked it to the floor. There must have been traces of iron ore in the stones, Ed thought furiously. Archer was using a magnetic field produced by an electrical current to hold the metal in place.

Ed struggled against the bond, his own pain temporarily pushed to the fringes as Archer stalked towards Hawkeye. She tried twisting her torso, attempting to dislodge the two handguns Ed could see on her back holsters. Archer brushed one of her boots, and she kicked. Her heel made contact with something soft, and Ed heard a sharp intake of breath.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye, if you keep that up, I'll break your legs. Just be still and we can get this over with in a timely fashion. Perhaps you'll even get Fullmetal to a doctor before he passes out from blood loss."

"I made a promise, Archer," she said hoarsely. "What you're asking me to surrender will only bring more pain and suffering. There can be no more flame alchemists. I won't unleash that hell upon the world a second time."

Ed struggled to acclimate to the sudden deluge of information. If Archer was after the secrets of flame alchemy, why had he come to Lieutenant Hawkeye? If he knew all of their locations, why not mount a raid on Alphonse and the Colonel's hiding place instead?

As Archer rested a hand on Hawkeye's back, in the valley between her shoulder blades, something chilling occurred to Ed, resurfacing from the intricate indexes of his memory. He knew the Colonel, like most state alchemists, kept copious alchemical notes, often in code and, in Mustang's particular case, ciphered using the names of various female acquaintances. One night, in a particularly fierce fit of resentment, Ed had swiped them from Mustang's desk, much to Al's horror. He had spent several hours attempting to decode them, hoping to uncover some kernel of alchemical arcana that would shed some light on their quest to get their bodies back. Their search had ultimately been in vain, and Al had insisted on returning the notes before the Colonel set them both on fire.

But Edward Elric was no one's fool, and amidst Mustang's scribbles on alchemical arrays and transmutation formulae, two things had distinguished themselves: despite being his modus operandi, Roy Mustang made no mention of flame alchemy in his notes, nothing regarding his methods or technique, none of the critical equations. The second thing hadn't struck Ed as particularly important at the time, but as Archer touched Hawkeye's back, he remembered that in Mustang's code, he had used a single name to reference dark, esoteric alchemy, formulae he thought too terrible or too dangerous to commit to the written page.

The name was _Elizabeth_.

Ed had sometimes wondered just how deep the bond between Colonel and adjutant went, how entwined their histories were. He had first seen them together on that terrible day in Resembool, and since then, Hawkeye had been a shadow filling the space beside her commanding officer, never far from Mustang's side, even when he was being so lazy and arrogant that a lesser person than Lt. Hawkeye –– Ed counted himself amongst that company –– would have punched the Colonel's lights out. They were tied together by something beyond their military service. It was a bond as strong as Ed and Al's own, as unerringly powerful, as all consuming, as their yearning to restore their original bodies.

But Hawkeye wasn't an alchemist. Unless Archer had somehow made the vague connection between her codename and the Colonel's notes, there was nothing tying the Lieutenant to flame alchemy.

Then Archer took a pocketknife from his voluminous pockets, and suddenly Ed's thoughts were on everything but flame alchemy. Hawkeye caught the glint of light in the corner of her eye, and she thrashed her legs wildly, trying to drive the man away. Archer paused, waited, then swooped down and deftly sliced through the ligaments behind Hawkeye's kneecaps.

She didn't scream.

"You didn't have to do that!" Ed cried. His helplessness was like a weight on his chest, crushing his diaphragm, making it hard to speak. He hadn't felt so incredibly powerless since he stood in Shou Tucker's darkened study and looked upon the aberration that had once been a little girl. Someone he cared about was going to get hurt and there was nothing he could do. Again.

He had to free himself. He had to get up. He had to help the Lieutenant. Because even though he couldn't stand Roy Mustang, no one should have to go through the pain of losing the person who mattered the most to them in the entire world. Because the Colonel losing Riza Hawkeye would be like Ed losing Alphonse. And then the memory returned, dragging him raw and bloody across the floor, through the grime, screaming for his little brother in the darkness, knowing he would cut out his heart and carve penance on every inch of his flesh if it meant seeing him alive again.

It couldn't happen again. Not with Al. Not with Hawkeye. Ed couldn't bear it a second time. It would kill him.

Archer stuck the knife under the Lieutenant's collar, slid the blade down the back of her uniform, cutting her out of it. Ed growled deep in his throat and ignored the blood soaking through his clothes and reached for Hawkeye's gun, pulling his automail leg from the knee, stretching until every muscle in his back screamed. But the gun stayed just out of reach, about half a foot outside the range of his fingertips…

There was a near-inaudible gasp as Archer peeled away the two halves of Hawkeye's striated uniform, opening her like a book, like an alchemist's ream of notes.

A part of Ed wasn't surprised to see the transmutation array on Riza Hawkeye's back. Another part of him, the sane part of him, wanted to be violently sick.

The ink looked too much like blood, like it had been sliced into her flesh. Her muscles tensed as she struggled against her bonds and the tattoo writhed like fire, recursive and terrible in its geometric beauty. The sun, the salamander… all alchemical symbols of heat, the elementals of fire. Ed realized that he had seen the design before, on the back of Mustang's ignition gloves, but this was different. The Colonel donned his gloves willingly; Hawkeye's tattoo marred her like a prison brand. The Lieutenant met his gaze, and her amber eyes burned with shame, but not at the indignity of it all. She was the guardian of the secrets of flame alchemy, and she had failed to keep it secret. She had failed the Colonel.

Archer laid a hand on her bare back. Hawkeye flinched.

"Don't touch her," snarled Ed.

Archer wasn't listening. Ed could see the array reflected in his pale eyes. He drank in the sight of it, his hands trembling as they ghosted over the curves of the Lieutenant's back. She shuddered, and the gross violation made Ed so angry he saw red and felt a headache explode behind his eyes.

"It's beautiful…"

That's what she was to him, an _it_. An object, a person reduced in worth to the expanse of flesh between her shoulder blades. Every touch seemed to burn her.

"I understand now," Archer started in the small space opposite her navel, tracing her spine upwards, "kinetic friction and oxygen density, simple really… like lighting a matchstick."

Suddenly, Archer's nails grated against knots of scar tissue.

"The formulae… where are they…"

Ed peered over the Lieutenant's shoulder. Deep, ugly burn scars marred her left side, twisted and gnarled like the boughs of an old tree. The Fullmetal Alchemist had his scars, his fair share of them. But Hawkeye's scars reminded him more of the etchings inside his pocket watch, a reminder of things too terrible to speak of but too important to be forgotten. A promise to remember, even if it hurt.

Archer staggered back from Hawkeye. His pale eyes looked suddenly very dark. His voice was barely audible, trembling with rage when he murmured, "He burnt it off."

Ed went cold. When he swallowed, his saliva was like acid, burning his throat. The Colonel…

 _It's not him he's worried about…_

The Lieutenant's eyes flashed in triumph.

"The secrets you're after burned with me, Archer. No more flame alchemists. Not now. Not ever."

"You little bitch…"

"You've failed."

"Tell me the rest!" he demanded. He grabbed a handful of her hair, tearing it from her clip, whispering harshly against her ear, "Tell me the formulae!"

"It's gone."

"Tell me or I'll kill the boy!"

"Like hell you will!" Ed shouted from the other side of the room.

Archer raised his gauntleted hand. The rifle moved out of Ed's reach. The muzzle pressed itself against the back of his head.

"It would be quite difficult to miss at this range," said Archer. "Tell me the missing piece."

Ed and the Lieutenant exchanged a glance. Maybe Ed wasn't able to say as much as the Colonel, maybe his ciphers didn't run so deep, but both Edward Elric and Riza Hawkeye understood some tacit, unspoken truth that every action had its consequence, that some promises were worth more than a single life. Humanity paid for its progress with the understanding that they would weather out the repercussions, even if it destroyed them. Even if they paid down with limbs and burnt flesh, entire bodies, they could never forfeit the price of their souls.

"It's okay, Hawkeye," said Ed, smiling sadly.

She shook her head vigorously. "Edward, think of your brother. Think of Alphonse. You have to continue your quest. You have to get your original bodies back."

"And you gotta protect the Colonel. Seems we all got something to do. We don't have the luxury of living for ourselves, eh Hawkeye? Our hearts belong to strangers."

Edward Elric had been prepared to die from the moment he and Al, their fingertips dusted in chalk and blood, attempted human transmutation on the floor of their father's study. If traveling through the Gate had taught him anything, it was that his was a single life in a vast ocean of past and future selves, the ripples of every decision swallowed in the immensity of the void. Even so, he knew his reason for living. He had to get Al's body back, just as Riza's had to protect the man who was, Ed suspected, a part of her soul she had lost a long time ago. The least Ed could hope to do was trace ripples on the ocean, dance his fingers on the surface, until the ripples bounced off the shores of the world and created waves, and the great wheel of birth and rebirth, deconstruction and reconstruction, was dented, bent into the tiniest adjacent curvature. And if that ripple was caused by a drop of his lifeblood, or his body returning to the vast ocean of the external world, then so be it.

Equivalent exchange. Ed knew the price of holding true to a promise.

"Look after Al for me, Lieutenant," said Ed. "And tell the Colonel to man up and stop wasting time already. You won't wait for him forever… actually," he chuckled, "maybe you might."

"Tell him yourself, you moron!"

The tinny, hollow voice echoed through the building like a miracle. Archer relaxed his grip on Hawkeye's hair, turning just in time to catch an elbow to the solar plexus from a hulking suit of armor. He fell gasping to the floor, clutching at his throat. The Lieutenant's rifle clattered to the ground as the electromagnetic field dissipated. Alphonse Elric swept Ed into his arms.

"You gave up," whispered Al, his voice cracking with hurt. "You _idiot_."

"Nah, Al." The adrenaline was beginning to wear off, and Ed became excruciatingly aware of just how much pain he was in. "I was just keeping a promise."

"Don't move, either of you."

Archer sounded winded, his voice little more than a croak, but still very much alive. He held one gauntlet across Hawkeye's throat, the other on her forehead. One sharp tug would snap the Lieutenant's neck. Archer was much taller, and Hawkeye's limp, useless legs dangled several inches above the floor. The tattered remnants of her uniform hung from her arms, covering her front but leaving her exposed back — and the array — pressed against Archer's chest. The Lieutenant's eyes blazed; she struggled, swinging her arms, arching her back, but Archer's grip tightened and suddenly her chest was rising and falling in short, painful gasps.

Edward's fist clenched. He felt Al go rigid. There was a tug in his gut, raw alchemical power coursing through every nerve and synapse. He wanted to tear Archer's throat out. He wanted to hold him down while Hawkeye put a bullet through each of his nauseatingly empty eyes. He wanted to kill him, as much as he'd wanted to kill Shou Tucker.

Then Al was turning towards the door, and panic clawed at Ed's throat. He couldn't leave the Lieutenant. He had to protect her. He had to protect the secrets on her back. Mustang had given him a job to do, dammit. He couldn't leave. He was sick of losing the people he was supposed to protect.

"Brother…" Al's voice was a tiny, terrified whisper.

Ed looked. A new sort of cold crept along the nape of his neck. The Flame Alchemist stood in the doorway, his black coat draped across his shoulders, veiling him like a shadow. He stared at Hawkeye, at Archer. Something seemed splintered behind his eyes. The gates of hell hung swinging on their hinges.

Edward Elric had only been truly afraid three times in his life: when he woke up amidst the shadows and the blood and the screaming and his brother was no longer there, snatched from him by Truth. When he looked into two dull, dead eyes and Nina Tucker asked him to play, muttered the syllables of his name like a fading heartbeat. _Ed-ward. Ed-ward_. And when he looked at Roy Mustang's face as the Colonel stepped into the room and found his subordinate dangling in Archer's arms, blood dripping from her cut ligaments, her uniform in tatters, her flesh exposed, violated…

His coal-black irises narrowed to slits. He emitted the most intense aura of fear of anyone Ed had ever known. Heat radiated from his skin, like the embers of a bonfire, an inferno singing in his blood. Despite the newfound source of heat in the room, Ed shivered.

Archer twisted Hawkeye in his arms. She tried to pry his hands away and Archer tilted her head, her neck popping. The Lieutenant froze; Mustang barred his teeth. The growl in his throat was almost inhuman.

"Surrender the rest of the information, Flame Alchemist," said Archer haggardly. "The alchemical formulae: a few variables, Mustang, that's all I need—"

"Shut up."

Ed swallowed. _Run_ , he wanted to scream at Archer. _Run like hell and pray to a God who still gives a damn about your miserable life. Because the only thing that will save you now is a miracle._

"Surely her life is worth more to you than alchemy—"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Roy Mustang snapped; a cobalt-blue spark raced over Hawkeye's shoulder. Suddenly, Archer's white eyes exploded, fire searing the rods and cones of his sockets, the fluid bubbling like hot grease. The sweet smell of burning fat stung Ed's nostrils. Bile rose in his throat. His heart hammered in his chest. He felt himself clinging to Alphonse, who turned, trying to shield his brother from the heat.

Archer's screams were long and terrible, cracking with agony. He dropped Hawkeye and clawed at his face, at his blackened, sightless eyes, burning his fingers in the process.

Mustang took a menacing step forward. His black eyes were hard and flinty, like the carapace of a beetle. Without an iota of hesitation, he snapped again. Flames licked Archer's throat, snaking into his nose and mouth, reducing the soft pink flesh to charcoal and ash, sucking the oxygen from his wilting lungs. The screaming was suddenly choked off, throttled.

"Colonel, enough!"

Hawkeye crawled across the floor on her elbows, dragging her useless legs behind her. Her eyes were the same color as his fire.

"Stand down!" she snarled at him. Her hand was on her rifle.

Mustang glanced at her… and froze, his hands still poised to snap.

The Lieutenant's long, blond hair had been burnt off at the shoulder. Blackened strands dusted her bare shoulders. Her face was covered in ash, and tiny blisters and burns peppered the back of her neck. The skin of her bare back was raw and red from the heat.

The mask cracked, and the Colonel recoiled as if struck. He flung his gloves off. He dropped to his knees and pulled Hawkeye away from Archer. When his hands touched her shoulders, she hissed in pain, but didn't cry out.

"Brother, we have to put the fire out!" said Al shakily. He sounded like he was about to cry, though no tears would come.

"It's too late, Al," Ed murmured. His eyes were stinging. He told himself it was because of the smoke; he was lying. He felt as though someone had shot him through the chest. It was agony to brush up against the edges of the hurt, the ragged hole where his heart used to be.

The charred corpse on the floor didn't even look human anymore. Chunks of flesh still smoldered. Fingernails had scored the floorboards. Its mouth was frozen in a silent scream. Alphonse let out a tiny sob, and Ed couldn't stop himself from shaking.

"You idiot…" seethed Hawkeye.

Her face twisted in rage. When Mustang wrapped his arms around her and held her close, his eyes closed, his shoulders just imperceptibly trembling, she beat her fists against his arms.

"You weren't supposed to come!" she raged. "You were supposed to follow the plan! I was supposed to keep you safe! You weren't supposed to barge in here and reduce everything to ashes! You're better than that, dammit! How can I protect you if you insist on acting so irredeemably stupid?"

But Mustang's grip only tightened, and Hawkeye's bright eyes welled with tears. Her fists unbunched. She allowed herself to be rocked back and forth, shaking with pain and exhaustion. Finally, she allowed herself to be held.

"If you do that again, you'll kill us both…" she sobbed against his sleeve.

Perhaps, even now, Hawkeye couldn't help but speak in ciphers, like alchemists guarding their secrets, like soldiers on the hunt. Like two frightened people for whom words were everything, and absolutely nothing at all. The things essential remained invisible and silent. Ed felt the cold seep through his bones, and he huddled into his brother's arms, the remnants of his automail arm echoing against Al's chest.

He thought about the small things, the things left unsaid and unremembered. Like the eclipse of each subsequent moment as time marched on, and matter withered and decayed and metamorphosed into something else. Like alchemy, and the science of returning to the base constituents of all things, changing them. Reconstructing them. Making something exquisitely, brutally beautiful. Motion and light, gravity and time, soil and sky, snow and steel and fire… what if these things abide by the same laws that break our hearts?

Edward felt very sorry for Frank Archer. What a terrible curse, to be so alone, to be separated from the lifeblood of the world…

When the darkness came, Ed let it take him.

* * *

Alphonse was aware that they were a very strange sight. The Colonel's face was streaked with soot; his uniform still smoked in places. His face looked sallow and tired, and his black eyes stared at nothing, boring into the industrial white of the hospital walls. The floor was puddled with melted snow.

And him? He was a giant suit of armor. He supposed he looked out of place irrespective of the circumstances.

The silence had turned from companionable to uncomfortable since the nurse left about an hour ago. Mustang didn't seem keen on talking, retreating to a dim, dusty place inside his head where Alphonse wasn't welcome. But Al needed answers. He knew brother would be desperate for them in his own time, but Al reasoned he could handle the asking with a lot more delicacy than Edward.

"At least they agreed to put them in the same room," said the younger Elric tentatively. "We can protect them better that way."

Mustang's shoulders sagged. "Like I protected her today, eh?"

"The doctor said the burns were only superficial." Unlike the scars on her back, Al thought to himself, but didn't dare say out loud. "She'll be okay once her legs heal."

"Will she?"

Al knitted his hands together. He wanted to shift but every movement he made sounded loud and unwieldy, like basin wrenches on a kettledrum, and he didn't feel like disturbing the other patients. So he sat stiffly, a million thoughts screaming to be heard but nothing really transmuting into the shape of words.

"No one will blame you, Colonel," he said, his voice soft.

"But there will be an inquiry," he countered. "An investigation. It will take them a while to identify the body using dental records." He laughed bitterly. "It's quite an economical use of resources, isn't it? Investigations are infinitely less complex when the murderer and the murder weapon are the same person."

"You were protecting the Lieutenant, Colonel. If it had been brother, I would have done the same thing." Alphonse hesitated. He knew he would only be adding fuel to the fire still simmering under the surface, but he started talking before he lost his nerve: "Colonel, I have to know… the Lieutenant's back…" Alphonse chose his next words very carefully: "Sir, brother will ask about it in time. You don't want to be the one to tell him. He won't understand. Let me do it."

The black, dangerous light returned to Mustang's eyes, like torchlight boiling in obsidian. Alphonse hoped he never had to see it again; it terrified him.

"She asked me to take her burden from her," he said, his voice ominously soft, "so I did."

"The array…"

"Her father –– my master's –– research. She trusted me with the most powerful type of alchemy yet conceived and I used it to kill people. And people wonder why Hawkeye has a difficult time surrendering her trust."

"You can't blame yourself."

His laugh was acidic. "Tell me, Alphonse, every time you look at your brother's automail arm, do you feel the tiniest pang of guilt?"

Al hung his head. He clasped his hands in his lap. His shoulder shook, rattling like raindrops on corrugated tin. "Not tiny, Colonel. Anything but tiny. Sometimes it hurts so much I think I'm losing myself all over again."

Mustang looked up at him, and the hard, angry lines of his face softened: "I'm sorry. That was unkind of me…"

"Every time I look at brother," Al interrupted, his small voice quivering, "every time Winry has to come fix him, I know that it's because of me. I took his arm away from him. I broke him apart and… and… and I can't… I can't put him back together…" He took a deep, shuddering breath. It echoed like a steam piston within his chest. Al wished he could cry. "I can mourn what we have lost, Colonel, but I can't feel sorry for myself, because that would mean Edward's sacrifice was for nothing. Brother doesn't regret what he did to save us. And I don't think Lieutenant Hawkeye regrets what she did to save herself… or to save you. Her sacrifices are for you, not inflicted by you. She doesn't blame you."

"Do you think she will blame me for killing Archer?"

Al hesitated for a moment, but he was not a person predisposed to lying. It only caused more pain. "Yes. She will never tell you so, sir, but she almost lost you today. She will not forget that."

Mustang stiffened, and Al thought he had gone too far. Then the Colonel's head drooped, all the fight diffusing out of him, a fire snuffed out. His sopping greatcoat made him look so small.

"I do not regret what I did today, Alphonse. His death is one I will gladly let stain my conscience. Knowing what I know of my subordinate, of Archer…"

"He would have hurt her pretty badly, huh?"

"Yes." Mustang looked too tired and too burdened with the weight of secrets to shoulder any more. "Understand that the Lieutenant told me this of her own volition. She thought the team should be made aware of it before I signed her on as my adjutant. She's… bureaucratic in that respect."

"Archer said she killed him."

"She did. According to a grossly incompetent or bribed army surgeon, Archer died from a bullet wound to the gut."

"What happened? Hawkeye would never kill someone without a good reason." He thought of Winry. "She cares too much."

"The reason?" Mustang's hands gripped his knees until his knuckles were white. "Because Archer tried to save her."

"Huh?"

"At the time, Riza Hawkeye was the youngest person to be shipped out to Ishval. She was 19 years old. A child. Understand, Alphonse, the army was in desperate need of snipers. They needed people to watch over us from on high, to protect us –– the state alchemists. She was the best there was, even as a first-year cadet. She was a prodigy, and Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Archer's protégé. He taught her everything she knows. On the night before she shipped out, Archer took her aside, and offered to help her escape the East. To desert the military. To run."

"That doesn't sound so bad… maybe he only wanted to keep her safe."

Mustang snorted, and when he spoke, his words dripped with malice: "He wanted to abscond _with_ her. Alphonse, Frank Archer was in love with her. The sort of love so all-consuming, it eventually consumes itself.

"He didn't care about Hawkeye," the Colonel muttered, "he only had himself and his future aspirations in mind. She was just an accessory to him, a fixture of the power he so desperately craved." He took a deep breath, but it did nothing to calm him. "She refused his offer, of course. That should have been the end of such nonsense. But Archer's offers got more insistent…"

Al froze. He didn't know what to say. He didn't think there was anything he _could_ say.

"She never told me the full details of what happened after that, Alphonse. But she turned herself in to the court martial office in the middle of the night, claiming to have killed a man. She helped them find the body. She surrendered her guns. By the following morning, she was cleared of all charges and shipped off to Ishval."

"As punishment?"

"Perhaps. It may as well have been." Alphonse noted that the Colonel had clawed straight through the fabric of his trousers. His jaw was clamped tight. He had a difficult time getting the words out: "However, the bruises on Hawkeye's throat said more than enough in regards to her motives."

"Oh."

Mustang put his head in his hands. He rubbed his eyes as though to dislodge something from his sockets. "When I saw the Lieutenant today… saw her in his arms… her uniform…"

"It's okay, Colonel," said Alphonse.

"Like hell it is!" he roared, trembling in anger, uncoiling like a spring. Al flinched. The Flame Alchemist's voice dropped to a harsh, rasping whisper. "She didn't shoot Archer all those years ago to protect herself, Alphonse. Not because he was going to hurt her. She did it because she was afraid of him finding the array on her back. She was protecting me, my sin. Just like she did today. Just like Fullmetal did today. We made a promise to bury the secrets of flame alchemy, her and I. Bury them, and salt the earth. But even now, even after I've flayed her with fire and erased her father's handiwork, even after I've sworn to use alchemy only for the betterment of the people, my sins continue to hurt the people I love."

"She made a promise to you, sir. She cares about you."

"I understand the power of your ideals, Alphonse," said Mustang, his voice shaking. "I understand that you may think a single life sufficient price to pay to save a soul. But nothing, _nothing_ , is worth Riza Hawkeye's life. Not even her promise to me."

The Flame Alchemist leapt to his feet and stalked away, his hands in his pockets, his head pressed onto his chest. Melted snow ran like teardrops from his greatcoat.

Alphonse sat by himself, watching him go. Watching the shadow recede from the corridor. Then he looked out the window on the opposite wall, at the city trapped under the slate-gray sky, and watched the snow pirouette between the buildings.

Covering rooftops and streets and people, as silent as a cipher.

* * *

He feels winter in the stone. Beyond the prison walls, the nights have grown longer, the days short and raw and cold. Everything is the gray of polarized glass and steel, as though the sky has been hewn from the iron ore that runs like blood through the bedrock of the earth.

He measures eternity in the mildew pooling in crags on the floor, the measured beating of his heart, the cadence of footsteps passing his cell –– the past rememoried and time recurrent in the adjacent silence between each breath. He hears voices beyond the door, and the sound is a discordant drone against his ears, a sour note in the song of his solitude.

"Do you have the proper authorization?" asks the guard.

The reply is the dry rustle of paper as documents are exchanged. The guard's breathing is a staccato panting. Like a dog's. His companion's is controlled, disciplined, so quiet as to be nearly silent, like a whispered secret or a lover's sigh.

"Be quick about it, ma'am."

"Sir."

"Sir. My apologies."

Hastily misspoken, hastily corrected. Then, to the guard: "Leave us."

"Ma––sir. He's dangerous."

"I'm armed."

Footsteps recede. The door opens. He smiles.

"Hello, Major." She is so straight-laced, like a pair of parallel lines moving into infinity, never touching. He sees it in the rigidity of her spine and the line of her shoulders, as level and cold as bladed steel. Her eyes are hard and the edges of her body are sharp; a single caress will cut and draw blood.

"Titles hold little meaning here, Riza."

She flinches when he says her name, and suddenly her jagged edges are made of glass rather than steel. She has never told him her name; she has never had a reason to. He glimpsed it once on a personnel dossier, the document passing between commanders in Ishval, in a moment too brief for the world to remember it. But he did not forget.

Underneath the military ranks and scarred flesh are tiny motes of truth. The small things, the short, bright, beautiful things. The atoms in the gray flesh of his cerebrum, where his memories live forever. The minute tremble of his hands as his blood burns and explosions dance at his fingertips, heat and light and death kissing his skin. The taste of her name on his tongue, a true thing from a woman who wears her pretenses like armor, cutting those who come too close.

"The task force assigned to the investigation requires a statement from you, sir," she says quietly. "However, I was informed that you refused to talk to them before speaking to me. I'm here in the interest of exonerating my commanding officer as quickly as possible. So," she loops her hands behind her back, ghosting the array he knows is hidden under her uniform, and holds his gaze. Her eyes are beautiful, the color of explosions in the desert. "What is it you want to say, Kimblee?"

Every breath tastes of blood. Metallic, like iron and cordite. Like the scent of her.

"Frank Archer paid me a visit."

"Frank Archer is dead."

"Ah… Explains why I've been sleeping so peacefully. Tell me, did his eyes bleed?"

"You were the last person to see him before his arrival in East City." She pauses. "You told him about Berthold Hawkeye's work, sir. Do you deny it?"

"No."

He feels it like lightning flashing in glowing fractals across the sky. Her anger is his blood and his lust and his fury and the crimson fire of her eyes, things mankind has since learned to tame, to control.

Pain would be exquisite. To see her lose that control, to feel her punish him, damage him, mark him in atonement for his betrayal… it would be ecstasy. It would make tactile a primordial itch that begs to be clawed ragged and raw. It would satiate the ache in his bones, fan the heat in his stomach.

"You want to know why."

It is not a question, and she knows it. She is keen in her scrutiny of him, attentive of his every breath; the reversal of roles thrills him.

"No. I already know why."

"Then tell me."

"You wanted him to die."

The reasons are always simple.

"Do you think me a vindictive man, Riza?"

"What I think is irrelevant. You are an alchemist, sir. Equivalent exchange. You believed there was a price to be paid."

"I do like to keep a balanced account."

"Because for some reason, sir, you've taken an interest in me. You seem to think the matter between myself and Archer somehow concerns you."

"Merely the act itself. Defilement is a collective sin. He tried to rape you."

A silence. A lesser being would call it hesitation, but he is not so simple, and neither is she. "He tried. He failed."

"Hmm… You need not revisit the memory. It was not difficult for me to deduce. As I said to you in Ishval, we humans are quick to recognize ourselves in others. Perhaps, to an extent, he presented a reflection I would much rather leave confined to the peripheries of forbidden thought. Unfortunately for me, the lines demarcating image from reflection, thought from face, are thin scribbles drawn in charcoal, easily washed away. Such is the nature of insanity."

She is quiet for a time. Even in the dark, he can see her gun outlined against her uniform.

"Do my attentions frighten you?"

"No, but they are unwelcome."

"Yes, I suppose they would be. Sometimes, Riza Hawkeye, I want to love you. Sometimes, I want to hurt you. Oftentimes, the two desires are hard to distinguish. You don't fear me, but perhaps you should. I know I would."

"I don't care. Your perverse inclinations are of little interest to me." The bladed edge glints. He will not be the first to draw blood. "I remind you that this is an official inquiry, Major. Why did you want the Lieutenant-Colonel dead?"

He stares past the horizon of her shoulders, into the carved lines in the stone where whispers of winter murmur through the walls. In the empty spaces, he sees a land of sand and blood and smoke, dunes undulating like waves breaking upon the shores of distant lands. "Do you remember what our soldiers used to do to those Ishvalan girls?"

"Major, try to stay focused."

He snaps his eyes to hers, and her heartbeat skips. She misses one of her notes. Because she understands. Because he knows her, and his knowledge is more transient than the touch of any lover, more intimate than her Flame Alchemist will ever hope to be. Because she _is_ frightened of him. He is almost disappointed. "Girls younger than you, Riza. Daughters, sisters, wives. Brutalized, the skin of their backs rubbed raw by the sand and the wind."

"Major––"

"I am prejudiced to an approval of soldiers because they wear their honor upon the sleeves and brocades of their uniforms. Every gunshot is a promise, and every pint of blood spilt binds them to it. So when soldiers fail to uphold that promise, when they discard their honor and their uniforms to _have_ girls in the rubble, I can't help but feel as though I've been lied to. I tend to take that rather personally."

"Major!"

"The weak, the grotesque, the perverted are abrasions on the face of humankind. Archer did not deserve to die; he existed to die, to be culled and butchered and _burned_ like the beast he is."

"Enough, Kimblee!" There is a hairline split in the armor. The flesh underneath is soft and impotent. Delicate. Gentle. Tantalizing.

But she composes herself quickly, and the embers die, and it is as though nothing has happened. But he does not forget. "You have said enough, Major. Thank you for your cooperation."

"You're welcome."

"Archer assaulted you. There will be no charges pressed."

"Thank you."

"And my back?"

"That is your burden to bear. I wash my hands of it."

She nods. It is enough.

When she leaves, her absence is almost nostalgic.

He feels the winter in the stone. He presses his pilloried palm against the uneven, abrasive surface, and knows some of the light has gone out of the world.


End file.
